Society must protect those who are being exploited by human trafficking

Saturday was the 150th Anniversary of Congress passing the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolishing slavery.

The final House vote was 119 to 56, with all Republican members voting for abolition of slavery, and 16 Democrats breaking with their party to move the resolution to the states for ratification.

Today, human trafficking is the fastest growing business of organized crime, and the third largest criminal enterprise in the world. Involuntary prostitution, forced labor, other forms of slavery, and forced harvesting of human organs are the main offences within the term human trafficking.

On Tuesday, the Republican led Congress once again took up fight to end slavery in all its forms. The House passed 12 measures aimed at ending human trafficking in the US. Unlike the vote of 1865, this year’s votes drew a little more support from the Democrat ranks.

For more information about the International effort to fight modern day slavery, please visit the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, Human Trafficking Section.

Freedom is consistently in peril, and society must protect those who are being exploited.
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M Soper, "Society must protect those who are being exploited by human trafficking," GJ Sentinel (Online) 2 Feb 2015 http://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/articles/email-letters-february-2-2015 accessed 5 Feb 2015. 

Re: The U.K. faces a bad breakup

Lord George Robertson’s Jan. 6th opinion editorial in The Washington Post completely ignored Scotland’s legitimate right to be free of English tyranny. During my 3 1/2 years of study at the University of Edinburgh, I supported the Free Scotland Movement and participated in the rally featured in the column’s photo.

In 1783 the America seceded from England after winning a bloody Revolution, so why then can’t Scotland

peaceably secede in 2014?

Eight hundred years ago at the Battle of Bannockburn, Scotland won her first major victory against the English. In a modern era, nations should be free to peaceably dissolve the bands that chain one to another. A democratic vote is not re-Balkanizing Europe; the Romans struggled to reign in the feudal estates.

The 670-page Blueprint for Scotland, carefully crafted by academics and policy makers, is the most comprehensive guide to independence ever written. The “Better Together” proponents, such as Lord Robertson, have merely mocked the Blueprint.

The problem is that London dictates how Scots should live their lives. The Scots are overly taxed, overly regulated, and the English openly discriminate against the Scottish people. That is why Scotland deserves to join the United States in be free of English rule.

A people should be free to determine their own destiny.

Don’t blame tools for murders caused by mentally ill individuals

Matt Soper

Take your pick: knifings in China, bombings in Syria, shootings in the United States: Who’d have thought an elementary education is about survival? This past week saw 20 students murdered in Connecticut, 22 students stabbed in central China and 29 students killed by a mortar in Damascus.

Opponents of guns have quickly taken to the bully pulpit to point out the Second Amendment’s barrier to domestic security. What if guns are illegal or it’s illegal to run a plane into a skyscraper or bomb a school or stab innocent children? Does a law make “bad stuff” go away?

Evil does not exist within a gun, a plane or a box cutter-knife. Evil exists in the malicious minds and actions of those who turn thoughts into deeds. The real crazies in society will accomplish their evil deed regardless of if the actions are illegal, the implementation device is illegal or the geographic location is marked a “safe zone.”

Connecticut has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, yet a strict law doesn’t stop a thief. Adam Lanza broke state laws of theft, murder, entering a school zone with a dangerous weapon and concealing a firearm. Lanza was guaranteed no one would be able to shoot him for a long while, as he was in a “safe zone.”

No one talks about the Colorado Springs shooting of 2007, in which a mass-murderer began shooting parishioners in a church. That’s because a member of the congregation shot the murderer before the act progressed to the international news stage.

When can the conversation move from the tools used to harm innocent victims to the perpetrators and mental health in America?

As early as 2008, a school psychologist noted that Lanza cannot feel pain emotionally. Likewise, Jared Loughner, who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was deemed unfit to serve in the military for mental health reasons. James Holmes, the perpetrator of the Aurora theater murders, dropped out of neuroscience for severe depression and mental disturbances. Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold expressed tremendous warning signs of mental issues through their numerous blogs and membership in the “trench-coat mafia.”

Additionally, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who used bombs instead of guns to further their evil acts in Oklahoma City, were recognized as early as high school as suffering severe psychological conditions and being unable to express emotion. Society can wonder why mass murderers, such as Lanza, Loughner and Holmes, along with Harris and Klebold and McVeigh and Nichols, do not respect current laws. But society should be reasonably certain that these characters won’t respect future laws.

Of these, the only perpetrators who acquired their weapon legally were McVeigh and Nichols. They purchased fertilizer from a local farm coop. By the way, their bomb killed 169 and injured nearly 700 in Oklahoma City.

Real crazies don’t heed legal restrictions, They will accomplish their evil deeds regardless of the lawfulness of their weapon or act. Focusing on gun control is like blaming condom malfunctions for unwanted pregnancies.

When does society begin the conversation of focusing on people and mental health and not on the tools used for evil acts?

While a famous Harvard Medical study found no direct correlation between video games and adolescents’ increased aggressive behavior, the University of Washington’s Psychosocial Epidemiologic Department has found a correlation between a pattern of video game play and aggressive behavior, such as school shootings. It seems reasonable for society to look more to the root causes, such as mental health, PTSD and the increase in violent video games and films.

The shootings across the United States — from Oregon to Colorado to Connecticut — have brought the issue of what can society do back to the forefront. Unfortunately, the public debate is gearing more toward the tools used by perpetrators of mass murder rather than focusing on the root causes.

If our society truly cares about preventing future mass shootings, then the debate needs to look to mental health and aggravating factors such as violent video games and films.

Matt Soper is a resident of Delta County and an alumnus of Colorado Mesa University and the University of Edinburgh’s School of Law. He is earning a post-graduate degree in law from the University of New Hampshire. Contact him at matthew.soper@law.unh.edu.
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Published in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Tuesday 11 Dec. 2012, p. A4 <http://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/articles/dont-blame-tools-for-killings-8232caused-by-derang>.

Freedom "of" religion vs. Freedom "from" religion

The 2 April 2009 issue of the Economist had a very interesting article, regarding the UN Human Rights Council's Resolution A/HRC/10/L.2/Rev.1, however, I have to criticize the author for not following the topic of his arguement. Instead of talking about the UN Human Rights Council March 26th adopted resolution, he attacks the US concept of religious liberty in the end. America has a continually balancing system for religious liberty, which is entrenched in the Bill of Rights and to criticize the American system when that wasn't even the article's premise seems like a cheap shot. It is the difference between freedom "of" religion vs. freedom "from" religion. The US has adopted the latter, but the former seems to be the final thought of the author. His argument breaks down by not having a conclusion which reflexes what it is he is actually arguing, which should be the resolutions undermining of the Universal Declaration of Human Right.

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From The Economist print edition

Apr 2nd 2009
Why freedom of speech must include the right to “defame” religions

AT FIRST glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy. What is wrong with saying, as the resolution does, that some Muslims faced prejudice in the aftermath of September 2001? But a closer look at the resolution’s language, and the context in which it was adopted (with an unholy trio of Pakistan, Belarus and Venezuela acting as sponsors), makes clear that bigger issues are at stake.

The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion.

In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.

What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam. In many of the 56 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has led the drive to outlaw “defamation”, both non-Muslims and Muslims who voice dissent (even in technical matters of Koranic interpretation) are often victims of just the sort of persecution the 1948 declaration sought to outlaw. That is a real human-rights problem. And in the spirit of fairness, laws against blasphemy that remain on the statute books of some Western countries should also be struck off; only real, not imaginary, incitement of violence should be outlawed.

In much of the Muslim world, the West’s reaction to the attacks of September 2001, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has been misread as an attack on Islam itself. This is more than regrettable; it is dangerous. Western governments, and decent people everywhere, should try to ensure that the things they say do not entrench religious prejudice or incite acts of violence; being free to give offence does not mean you are wise to give offence. But no state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration. And in the end, given that all faiths have undergone persecution at some time, few people have more to gain from the protection of free speech than sincere religious believers.

The United States, with its tradition of combining strong religious beliefs and religious freedom, is well placed to make that case. Having taken a politically risky decision (see article) to re-engage with the Human Rights Council and seek election as one of its 47 members, America should now make the defence of real religious liberty one of its highest priorities.

See: America rejoins the argument over which human rights are sacred